Men's basketball | Stakes high for Ohio State as season winds down

The hope all season for Ohio State has been to play what coach Chris Holtmann has termed “meaningful games” when the calendar flips to February.

That goal has been reached, but with it comes higher expectations and tougher sledding. The No. 8 Buckeyes hold a one-game lead atop the Big Ten standings with four games remaining, but the path from here to a new men’s basketball trophy to add to the case is the hardest among the three teams still in contention.

Ohio State plays Thursday night at Penn State in an effort to avenge its lone conference loss. On Sunday, the Buckeyes go to No. 22 Michigan before playing Rutgers on senior night only two days later. The regular season ends at Indiana on Feb. 23, giving them four remaining games against teams with a combined conference winning percentage of 46.4 percent entering Wednesday night.

Nipping at their heels are two-loss Michigan State and Purdue, whose remaining quartet of opponents have respective winning percentages of 27.8 and 30.9. So while closing out the season with some hardware isn’t going to be easy, Ohio State knows it at least controls its destiny.

“Obviously it’s a big deal to us, just from where we came from last year it’s a new place for us in the Big Ten,” junior guard C.J. Jackson said. “(Coach) has stressed that we have to play a lot better than we did (last time) against Penn State. This game (Thursday) obviously means a lot for where we’ll finish up.”

Multiple Ohio State players have downplayed the notion of the game being an opportunity for revenge. At Value City Arena on Jan. 25, the Buckeyes allowed a conference-season-high 82 points in what has proven to be an anomaly of a defensive performance.

In conference play, Ohio State has the league’s top defensive efficiency, as ranked by KenPom.com, and has held six teams below 60 points and all but two below 70. Penn State’s 11-of-14 performance from three-point range was the best for an opponent in at least 21 years.

Holtmann said he has rewatched the Penn State game nearly a half-dozen times while stewing over how the Nittany Lions took it to the Ohio State defense.

“I don’t look at it as anything other than that was a really good team that just played well on our home floor and beat us,” he said. “You have games like that. That may not be the last time we say that this year. Everybody runs into a buzz saw and we ran into one that night for sure, and they’ve proven how good they are.”

If Ohio State wins out, it will capture its first outright Big Ten title since the 2010-11 team went 16-2 in the Big Ten. Should it take a loss and either Michigan State and Purdue or both win out, the Buckeyes would share the title but earn the top seed for the conference tournament on the strength of head-to-head wins against both teams.

For a team picked to finish 11th in the Big Ten in the preseason media poll, it’s about as meaningful as it gets.

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy

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